Hope It 's Good Enough

The first major outbreak occurred in remote villages in Central Africa, near tropical rain forests. The most current

In the film, Foul Water, Fiery Serpent, former president, Jimmy Carter shows his process of eradicating Guinea Worm disease. With the help of Director Gary Strieker, Carter educates viewers on how the disease forms, how it has spread throughout countries, and how it will soon be defeated. When Guinea worm first surfaced, there were 3.5 million cases in 20 countries worldwide. With the help of Jimmy Carter, his campaign members, and many more, they have managed to drop these cases down to 3,190 by the year 2009. With some statistical facts at the end of the documentary, Guinea worm is likely to be the next disease in the history of mankind to be eradicated from the earth, right after smallpox. It was also the first parasitic disease to be eradicated, and the first disease to be eradicated without the use of vaccines or medicines. With this campaign, reported cases went from 4,136 in 2007, to 242 cases by 2009 in Ghana alone. None of this would have been possible if it were not for the awareness in global health, and the mission to make the world a healthier, safer place to live.

One of the devastating diseases that was carried to East Africa was sleeping sickness (Ransford 111). The tsetse fly carries the sleeping sickness parasite, Trypanosoma brucei gambiense, and transmits it through its bite (African Trypanosomiasis). The isolated tribe’s total lack of immunity and the eastern migratory shift increased both the severity and rapidity of this disease for Eastern African regions. For example, the decline in the population of Lukolela from less than 6,000 in 1891 to only a little more than 700 in 1896, is due to this type of disease transference (Ransford 128).

Chagas disease, also known as American Trypanosomiasis, is a tropical disease caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, transmitted to humans through contact with the feces of an infected triatomine bug. The triatomine bug known as the kissing bug is a subspecies of the Reduviidae family. The bug itself does not cause the disease. Through contact with the fecal matter from the kissing bug, which is excreted near the bite wound, the parasite enters the bloodstream and begins to develop and reproduce.

Deadly insects are abundant in africa and kill people daily. The tsetse fly can cause sleeping

The article “Flies’ Feet Can Spread Bacteria” explains how Pathogens and Bacteria can be spread by flies’. Scientists experimented on houseflies and blowflies in which their laboratory experiments prove that flies can pick up bacteria on their legs and then deposit the microbial bacteria elsewhere. In addition, many scientists believe that flies can contribute to the rapid transmission of pathogens and outbreak situations. In other words, flies may be associated with the transfer of bacteria in outbreaks of diseases. These flies mostly stay around places with trash and sewage. For example, many of the test flies were in Brazil where the acquired bacteria from sewage and transferred to other locations. The flies’ legs are the most crucial factor

Discovered in 1909 by Carlos Chagas, Chagas disease, or American trypanosomiasis, affects an estimated 8 million individuals annually according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of individuals affected by this disease annually makes it a significant, yet preventable, problem. As a chronic parasitic infection, the disease is transmitted by insects and most commonly found in impoverished regions of Latin America, as well as the rest of the Americas. The purpose of this report is to explain the biology of this disease as well as its epidemiology and prevention strategies.

On December 26, 2013, in a small village in Guinea, a anomalous disease began spreading. An 18-month-old boy fell victim to the illness characterized by fever, black stools, and vomiting and would soon die from it. The boy is said to have contracted the disease from infected bats that were closer to human settlements due to deforestation. By January 2014, several members of the boy’s family and those who had helped them had developed similar symptoms resulting in death. Soon after, the disease had spread to those who had attended funerals or took care of ill relatives causing this pattern of exposure continued. An alert on January 24th was raised when the head of the Meliandou health post informed district health officials of cases of severe diarrhoea with a fatal outcome. An investigation was setup where a team of health officials found what

Black fly is the best known medically important insect, which belongs to a genus of Simulium, family of Simuliidae and the order of Diptera. Many species of female black flies are blood-sucking habit and they transmit the parasitic nematode Onchocerca volvulus, the causative organism of human onchocerciasis (river blindness) (Anbalagan et al., 2014a). It is commonly found in tropical Africa, Central America, South America and Yemen, where 30 million people are infected. Moreover, female blackfly bites may become itchy and swollen in human body for a number of days. In sensitized individuals reaction to black fly saliva injected at the feeding site may cause a syndrome known as “black fly fever” that consists of headaches, fever, nausea, and/or inflammation of nymph nodes (Harwood and James, 1979).

Chagas disease is caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, and about 7 million of people are infected in the endemic area of Latin America. Was discovered in 1909 by the Brazilian physician Carlos Chagas, and the infection occurs mainly by contact with de feces or urine of infected triatomine bugs, but there are other infection routes such as: congenital, transfusions, transplants and contaminated food. The Chagas disease has two stages, an acute and a chronic phase, in the acute stage the parasite can be found in the circulating blood and may be mild or asymptomatic. In the chronic phase, the parasites are in the heart and digestive muscles, most of infected people never develop Chagas-related, but a parcel of the infected suffer

Elephantiasis is a neglected tropical disease. Infection occurs when filarial parasites are transmitted to humans through mosquitoes. The mosquito grows into a adult worm and the worm lives in the lymphatic system. It is usually acquired in childhood causing hidden damage to the lymphatic system. There are 8 filariasis worms known to affect humans and these can be divided according to the body area they affect.

African sleeping sickness is a disease with multiple factors that make it a deadly illness to contract. To understand the illness is to understand its vector and how it plays a critical role in its infection of people. The relationship between the protozoan and the Tsetse fly is an intimate one that cannot be disregarded when evaluating its effects on a community. When traveling to counties that have a Tsetse fly presence in Africa it is best to plan ahead and use preventative measures. It was been proven to be much easier to prevent an infection of African sleeping sickness as opposed to curing it. The protozoan is able to survive and thrive in multiple organisms which makes it an incredible microbe and its ability to use the Tsetse fly as

Originating from Latin America, American Trypanosomiasis, or better known as Chagas Disease, is a “systematic chronic parasitic infection by Trypanosoma cruzi” (Ramos, et al. 919). It was discovered in 1909 by a Brazilian researcher named Carlos Ribeiro Justiniano Chagas, which was where the disease obtained its name from. Chagas Disease has expanded from Latin America to other countries, including Mexico. Rural areas are at great risk of this of developing this disease, but migration has been a key factor for the expansion of it to growing countries like the United States.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2013), Toxoplasmosis gondii is a single- celled parasite that causes a disease known as Toxoplasmosis. Most humans affected with this acute infection never know they have even come into contact with it because human’s immune systems are usually strong enough to fight off the infection. Most of the 60 million who are affected by this parasite are either pregnant women or someone with a compromised immune system.

In many countries re-emerging outbreaks of the disease have occurred after its disappearance of many years. These outbreaks include those reported in Botswana (1989), Madagascar (1991), Algeria (2003) and Tanzania (2007/2008), which recurred after being quiescent for 35 years, 60 years, 50 years and 30 years, respectively (Kumaresan, et al., 1991; Boisier, et al., 1997; Bertherat, et al., 2007; Makundi, et al., 2008).